


Anything You Can Do I Can Do Bleeding

by Scruggzi



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, Anna Ross deserves better but I'm a bastard, Gen, Introspection, Jane really goes through a lot, Minor Character Death, Periods, Phryne is an amazing mum but I think Jane might learn emotional repression from her, She's incredibly well adjusted when you think about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21607897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scruggzi/pseuds/Scruggzi
Summary: Jane reflects on the loss of her mother...
Relationships: Jane Ross & Anna Ross, Jane Ross & Dorothy "Dot" Williams, Phryne Fisher & Jane Ross
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Anything You Can Do I Can Do Bleeding

She was bleeding.

Jane woke and felt the cloying sticky mess between her legs that meant she had ruined another of Miss Phryne’s expensive sheets. Not that her guardian ever said anything. She never seemed worried about things - even expensive ones - perhaps because she could afford so many.

The first time it had happened Jane had only been at Wardlow for a few weeks and the sight of bright red blood against the crisp white linen had made her feel sick. Miss Gay would have beaten her for it. Forced her face into the wet blood and told her it was sin.

Phryne had asked Dot to deal with it (Miss Williams had a talent with bloodstains which she was very proud of) and taken Jane out for ice cream.

“Remember.” She had whispered conspiratorially over the raspberry ripple. “Whatever a man can do, you can do bleeding.”

From that moment on, Jane had resolved that no-one would ever know, no matter how sick she felt or how much it hurt. This might be a curse as Miss Gay had told her. A punishment for some other woman’s sin. But it would never been a weapon a man could use against her, or a reason to call her weak.

She lay in bed, feeling the think, rich blood-of-life rush out of her in waves and pulses. Like a tide or a heartbeat, but destructive, staining red on white.

Thinking of Miss Phryne, Jane noticed for the first time how well her guardian matched the description of Snow White. Blood red lips, snow white skin, ebony black hair...

_Was this where those images had come from? From menstrual blood against white sheets?_

Miss Phryne said that often women’s stories were sanitised or overlooked. That they were written by men and - although most of them hated to admit it – all men were a little afraid of women.

_Afraid of us._

Jane gripped the thought and held on to it for dear life as her control of mind and body slipped away. Betraying weakness. It made her feel powerful. She wanted to feel powerful.

 _She wanted her mother_.

Not Miss Phryne, who was wonderful. More goddess than Athena, fearsome and wise, the one who knew just what to say to make Jane see those qualities in herself. She felt neither fearsome, nor wise at this moment.

She felt alone.

Anna was gone. Cold and ashes. Never again a warm place of safety and apple cake.

Worse - because Jane was excellent at lying to others but had never mastered the art of lying to herself – Anna Ross had never been a place of safety. She had tried. She had loved her daughter. That was something Jane would never need to doubt. But she had needed Jane. Had needed her care. And for many long years before welfare separated them, she had needed Jane’s care more than Jane had needed hers. It had never occurred to Jane that this arrangement was the wrong way around. It had been the only one she had known until Miss Phryne had taken her in.

Now Anna needed no-one’s care, and guilt swarmed and feasted on Jane like biting gnats.

Because part of her was relieved.

Because now she could live her life.

Her care no longer required.

The tears flowed involuntarily at the thought. At her own wickedness. At the deep, gouging, violent loss that some cold part of her could still see as gain.

She waited for the tears to pass. A tiny icicle inside a melting mind. She drew a long, deep breath.

When getting up Miss Ross took care not to spot the carpet as she waddled down the hall to Dot’s room. She would need some help if she wanted to clean the sheets.


End file.
